Just three months after announcing that our co-founder, Luc De Leersnyder, was the first person at E&C to retire, we most unfortunately have to post an obituary. It is with a very heavy heart that we write down these impossible words. Completely unexpectedly, Luc died in his sleep on 18 October during a holiday in Bali, 64 years old.
After a career in different companies, with a highlight in HR consultancy for Mercuri Urval, Luc encountered the world of energy markets and energy consultancy at GfE energy management. He also encountered Luc Soubry and Benedict De Meulemeester and, with the support of Patrick Debusseré, the four of them founded E&C consultants in 2005. His main motivation was the eagerness to finally have the freedom to mould a company according to his own ideas. That this would become a global company servicing some of the world’s largest corporations, wasn’t in the plans or even imagined at that moment. But with his unique commercial drive and flair, Luc laid strong foundations for this success. As a manager, he also implemented principles such as empowerment and coaching leadership which today make working at and with E&C a more fulfilling life experience. After many years of strong partnership, Luc renounced his shares in 2019. In his last four years at the company, he continued to do what he has always been so good at: bringing in new clients. On the morning of 30 June of this year, the day on which we had his retirement party, he symbolically called us to announce that he had signed his last contract for E&C.
Many of you will remember Luc from those sales moments and the unique enthusiasm he brought to the table. He had unique qualities to capture the essence of a situation, which meant that as a salesperson he managed in every meeting to unveil the often-unconscious needs of clients regarding their energy procurement. His combination of rigorously applying common sense logic, having the guts to ask the right questions and showing empathy, also made him a unique HR manager. For so many E&Cers, Luc was the first face of our company and they vividly remember how he laid bare their professional strengths and challenges in his unique job interviews or during an evaluation moment.
Luc is also the source of a big box of anecdotes, many of them regarding his many business trips across Europe. Luc truly embraced life and didn’t let the stress of building a global consultancy firm interfere with that. He had an immense capacity to thoroughly enjoy every aspect, especially the small things. That made every journey, 15-minute walk through a historical city or village, dinner in a local restaurant and even a simple breakfast, a feast that he wholeheartedly enjoyed and spiced up with a never-ending stream of sharp comments. This joy of travel was something he extended also to his private life, where he discovered many corners of the world together with his wife Dorine. In the last four years at E&C, he reduced his working time and spent more and more time in Spain. His love for that country and dislike of cold Belgian winter weather led him to the dream of a Mediterranean B&B.
On the occasion of his retirement, we invited Luc to keep coming to our annual company events. At our event this September in Malmédy, having as its theme the music of his youth, he showed his talent for enjoying life more than ever. True to his character, he shared his enthusiasm for all things E&C and his new life with everyone, giving many of us a very pleasant memory of our last moment with him.
Wherever this last journey has taken you now Luc, we sincerely hope it’s a place where you can dance as you liked doing so much. A million thanks for fathering E&C, you will be dearly missed.
